Ultimate Guide To Multitasking: Why You Must Avoid It And How To Do It

Doing two or more tasks at the same time is multitasking. And multitasking plays havoc with your productivity in these three ways.

#1. Multitasking worsens time management

Multitasking is the number one mistake people make when they are trying to get more things done. Because when we are multitasking we are not really focusing on multiple tasks simultaneously. We are switching between these tasks to give an illusion of working on them simultaneously.

Our brain needs to do context switching when we move from one task to another.

Research has proved that it takes 23 minutes to regain your focus when you move from one task to another.

And where have those 23 minutes gone? Down the rabbit hole of wasted time. So if you want to get maximum out of available time, don’t multitask.

#2. Multitasking gets more low priority tasks done

If you are a multitasker, you will observe that you are doing less important or low priority tasks while multitasking. For the really important ones, you are unable to multitask if you want quality output as well.

Research has also proved that only 2.5% of people can multitask without any loss in performance.

Some researchers even attribute loss of IQ to regular multitasking.

So you end up doing the low priority tasks and the high priority ones get pushed back!

#3. You can’t do deep work with multitasking

When you multitask, your focus is divided into multiple parts and you cannot do deep work. Because for deep work you need to focus completely on a single task.

For any task, different parts of the brain need to get activated. When you move to a cognitively different task, other parts of the brain need to be fired.

So imagine the amount of context switching you are doing when doing two things at the same time! And I don’t even wish to hazard a guess as to what goes on in the brain when you try to do three or four tasks simultaneously.

But one thing is a given — you will never be fully aligned to any single one and, in fact, doing injustice to all of those.

So you end up doing superficial tasks rather than the deep work required for moving the needle.

Don’t multitask on the larger picture long term goals too

But it’s not just the one or two hour slots in your calendar — when you are scheduled to do a task — that you must remove all distractions and focus on a single task completely.

You must not multitask even when you look at the larger picture. Do not have two large projects going on simultaneously.

Put a pause on one of them and take it up when you finish the first one. This way, you will be doing justice to both of them.

Like I did recently by pausing the newsletter when I had to focus on preparing for my road trip to Kashmir and Ladakh.

How I did that — my story of NOT multitasking

At the cost of repeating myself I will say once again that at the beginning of 2021 my focus shifted to increasing my income and there was no compromising on it. Because whether we like it or not, accept it or not, money is essential for leading a happy stress free life.

So “increasing income” is my primary area of focus. But again, we cannot really live just for making money. We do need to do something out of passion, help others and feel human.

For me, the thing that makes me feel humane is talking about managing our time well. And the newsletter — 24 Hours are Enough — is my small effort in trying to make a difference in other people’s lives.

Shameless plug: Subscribe to the newsletter here.

So that brings me to 2 things I continue focusing on, in 2022 — increasing my income and building this newsletter.

When I had to start preparing for the road trip there was not enough mind space to take that on as well.

I knew that the road trip was to happen and I had to add my bit to the humongous effort my husband and daughter were already making. Plus I needed to wrap my head around the whole idea of staying on the roads for so long with the whole family in a treacherous mountainous region.

If I had continued writing the newsletters, I would have done injustice to you all as well as myself.

Remember, it’s my passion project? So the quality of everything that goes out under its name has to be top class. Better than other things to justify its existence!!

That’s how I ended up pausing my newsletter for 3 months and it restarts on July 7 (Dhoni’s birthday, yay!).

But enough about me, let’s come back to multitasking. And is it really possible to avoid it at all costs?

Well, not exactly.

What if sometimes you must absolutely multitask

I do understand that sometimes you are forced to multitask; there is no way out. In such a situation remember that multitasking affects the quality of output. Be extra careful about the outcome.

Maybe spend extra time revising/reviewing what you have done, especially if it has to go to a client or a third party.

And when it comes to our personal lives, or the intersection of personal and professional, multitasking is inevitable.

You can’t help but put your dinner on the stove while helping your kid with the homework.

Or, attend to that urgent call from the office while hanging out with friends because you promised you will be available on call!

But these are small chunks of time and there is probably no harm in doing this because it doesn’t really affect the quality of other activities much.

It is when you talk about larger goals or bigger projects that you need to stop multitasking.

For instance, you can’t really work on developing two software projects at the same time, can you?

Then how do you expect that you will be able to do two equally big and important projects simultaneously?

Coming back to my own example I started with, I am sure no harm was done by taking a 3 months break from my newsletter. But pausing it helped me focus completely on my road trip and help make it a success.

And why just passion projects? I wrote to all my editors sharing with them that I will be on break and hence not doing any work for a month. Not even checking my email. And they were perfectly fine with it.

There were two reasons for it I believe. One, I told them well in advance (which also sort of made it non-negotiable). And two, taking a break from professional work so that you can focus on personal things is getting normalized.

As a Gen Xer, I am really grateful to finally see this happening

But what if you are a full time professional?

Well, you need to have a conversation with your boss and team mates about not wishing to multitask. Considering the changing winds in the corporate world, I am sure you will be able to onboard them.

How not to multitask

If you are a multitasker, by choice or by design, it will take time to move to single-tasking. And the first is to be aware that you need to move off multitasking. For your own benefit.

Once you get into the mindset of “not multitasking” you can start taking these small steps:

• Talk to people who are affected the most by your decision, such as colleagues and family members
• If you work full time, bring your boss onboard your need to avoid multitasking. To improve your overall productivity.
• Start blocking days in your calendar task- or project-wise. When you do 2–3 different categories of tasks/activities in a day, you are forced to multitask.

Wrapping Up

When I started writing this post, I felt I didn’t have much to tell. Because after reading the research findings, anyone would know that they should not multitask!

But life is rarely so simple, and I have ended up writing close to 1500 words.

If you still have doubts, or need help avoiding multitasking, leave a comment. Or, you know my DMs and inbox are always open to you.